Hidden Legacy

NikkeiLegacy.com

HIDDEN LEGACY: JAPANESE TRADITIONAL PERFORMING ARTS IN THE WWII INTERNMENT CAMPS

 It has been almost 80 years since the Executive Order 9066 during World War II led to the forcible relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans, about two-thirds were American citizens, into American concentration camps.  Though much has been researched and written about this American history, there is still a subject which has not been thoroughly researched, and that is the story of how those incarcerated survived the prison camps for the four to five years they were imprisoned there.
The Hidden Legacy project researched and collected stories from former incarcerated artists and Sansei and Yonsei students who learned from some of these teachers. The questions were: how and why did traditional Japanese arts in the camps continue, how they used creativity to practice them, and how they fashioned equipment, kimonos, instruments and so on to be able to practice them. These arts played a critical role in the lives of those incarcerated to continue to survive and help them be resilient. After the war as many felt these traditional arts would make them appear “un-American”, many shunned these arts.  Now, we are learning that traditional cultural arts and music aid in survival and continue to do so today as we learn how the arts help us to understand ourselves.  Trying to survive in this pandemic, we have found that the arts also help us today to stay resilient. This project emphasizes the importance and benefits of keeping traditional arts alive not only for ourselves but for future generations as well.

The documentary film, “Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the WWII Internment Camps” (2014) can be seen on YouTube